Yummy Healthier Pumpkin Muffins

Made these wonderful pumpkin muffins today from a recipe from the Internet (joyofbaking.com). I changed the recipe a bit to make it more healthy, ie. applesauce instead of oil. They turned out fantastic and you will love them too!

Healthier Pumpkin Muffins

1 Can Pumkin Puree

2 Eggs

1/2 C. Buttermilk (add 1 tsp. lemon juice to milk and let sit for 5 min)

1/2 C. Unsweetened Applesauce

3/4 C. Whole Wheat Flour

3/4 C. Bran (I use oat bran)

3/4 C. Sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 C. Craisins or Chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the pumkin, eggs, buttermilk, and applesauce together in a bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, bran, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to wet mixture. Mix well. Add in the crasins or chocolate chips, if desired. Pour batter in muffin tin and Bake at 400 degrees for 16-18 minutes. Muffins are done when toothpick comes out clean after poking muffin. Makes 12 muffins. Enjoy the season! Love that pumkin.

I Started Juicing!!

So I've been sick a lot lately and have developed asthma and allergies this summer...YUCK! So I dusted off my juicer and found this not-so-yummy juice recipe, but oh-so-good for you anyway. Drink it up, it gets things moving and I swear it has melted some of my excess fat away! It's a cleansing type juice and good for healing any illness. Here it is:

Healing Juice

3 Carrots

3 Kale leaves

2 Stalks of celery

2 beets

1 turnip

1/4 pound spinach

1/2 head of cabbage

1/4 bunch parsley

1/4 onion

1/2 clove of garlic

1/2 Cucumber (optional)

Wash, peal and cut most of the veggies. Some people don't peal, but I do. This is good for 3-4 servings of juice. For one person use 1/4 of the recipe. I make enough for one full glass and I plug my nose and drink in down in one breath. Tell me how you like it. After drinking this almost everyday for 2 weeks I have started to acquire a taste for it. The problem is that most of us only like sweet tastes and that is what we are used to. Now, when I eat sweets they taste too sweet and I don't even want them. My husband and I have been drinking this concoction and we click our glasses together and say, "Cheers to good health!" I do believe I will wear out my juicer because I love the effects this is having on my body. I want to have optimal health and live long and prosper!

Tourist

I am a tourist in my own hometown. I have been away for two years and have come back mid summer to see the sights and the ever changing landscape. Gilbert, Arizona is where I come from, where I grew up. Back when there was only one stoplight in town and one high school. Now it is a thriving huge city with everything you need around you. As I am swimming in the pool, I hear the never ending hum of the air-conditioners and the crickets at night. I smell the stagnant water from the irrigated lawn and I see the bright white puffy clouds in the distance with the mountains nearby. All the sights and sounds that I remember from back when I was a kid growing up that seemed insignificant at the time, but when you are away living in the Midwest and then return, you capture all those memories of childhood in a short visit. The bright, scorching sun that always shines here, casting contrasting dark shadows on the sidewalk, the locusts buzzing in the trees in the backyard. All such familiar surroundings that I sometimes miss.

So many new things have been built here that I just can't believe this is where I am from. Because it was not like this growing up. It was a small town back then, I lived on the outskirts of city life, which are now the city. I visit Joe's Farm Grill and take a picture of the sign with my family because it is an attraction and a new place to see. I really do look like a tourist my husband says. But all in all, I came here to see my family and my parents and all those that I love. I don't get to see them often, but when I do I feel grounded and taken back to my roots of who I am and how I was raised to be. I like it. It's like a breath of fresh air, a new beginning to go back and raise my little family back in Wisconsin, where not so many people know me in the community I live in. Not that I don't like it, I really do. It's just well, a different culture there. I suppose there are a lot of people like me, who don't stay where they grew up. That fits me, for I love a new adventure. But I do love coming back, even when it feels like an oven outside.

Interesting

In this day and age of electronics and communicating, my Facebook account is where I go to catch up with friends and family and just see what in the world are people up to. My Facebook account is an escape from the monotony of the day, which is full of crying kids, housework, and a host of undone accomplishments. These are details that I never would have known pre-Facebook, but now that we are all plugged into this communication machine, we get caught up in following people's lives. We find out what is important to people, what they value, what their priorities are. If I think about it too much, it's sorta scary how much information about ourselves is out there.

High School Memories

I really liked high school. Seriously I did. I had tons o' fun. To make it fun and interesting I used to carry a cassette tape recorder around with me and I would walk down the vast halls and narrate what was going on and I would have teachers talk on it and friends, of course. I'm pretty sure I would fit more into the intellectual, nerdy category. I would also do these strange social experiments like place my backpack in the middle of the floor inbetween classes in the heavily traveled "mall" as we called it. Then I would find a bench nearby and watch what people would do. I just wanted to see how people would react to a full Jansport backpack in the middle of the action. So random, I know. One of the only regrets I have about high school is the fact that I missed one important event. The Senior Banquet. And just guess where I was? At a Yanni concert. Now we know how nerdy I really was. Seriously, I was jamming out to Yanni instead of recieving my crowning peer-voted award of Best Sense of Humor. That is really humorous that I loved Yanni so much to miss my best moment. The black flowing hair, the synthesizers and the New Age crowd. What a fantastic memory I must say.

Fun Mom, I think

So I took the kids to a birthday party at the stinky gymnastics place in the next town around here. I must say that I had just as much fun as the kids did. I purposely wore stretchy pants with a long shirt and one to tuck in because I was planning on doing my cool tricks too. So they had these two trampolines side by side in the ground so you could just walk onto them. And they were BOUNCY! What a dream to me. Perfect for my tricks. So I hovered around the trampolines so when the kids would get off, I could make my move. I brought back the ol' back flip first, then the backhand sprang, and then the ariel. Too bad none of the other moms were doing tricks and I was embarrassing my tween daughter because of it. The kids even clapped for me and I felt like a kid again. So the best part was that after the fact, I read all the rules for birthday party guests and I realized that I broke rule #1 and rule #2.

#1 No parents allowed on any of the equipment.
#2 No flips on trampolines

Hahahahah! So hilarious. What a bad example to the kids I am. I didn't know and none of the workers told me to stop. I want to be the fun mom that is active with her kids. Why not? But really, after having four kids I may need that surgery to keep the pee in?!?!